Florida's US Senators Bill Nelson and George Lemieux both sit on the committee and after months of emails, phone calls and in-person lobbying, Sen. Nelson did the right thing and voted to repeal the discriminatory law that bans gay, lesbian and bisexual service members from serving openly and honestly in the military.

Equality Florida has worked to put pressure on Congress and targeted Sen. Nelson for months as part of a coalition of local, state and national organizations, chief among them Progress Florida, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Human Rights Campaign. Over the past 60 days, 5,540 Florida supporters had responded to the coalition's action alert.

Unfortunately, Sen. Lemieux continues to express support for a bigoted policy that has resulted in the firing of 14,000+ honorable service members, many holding critical positions, such as Arabic linguists.

The repeal measure passed today by Senate Armed Services Committee will now be added to the Senate version of the fiscal year 2011 Defense Authorization bill and will be voted on by the full Senate in coming days.